Timeline

Efforts to build a new senior center began in 2018, including community input sessions, a feasibility study, and conceptual drawings.  This effort was tabled at Town Meeting in 2020 due to concerns about the site, and timing at the beginning of the COVID epidemic.  A second attempt to build a senior center as part of a community center ended due to concerns about the location.  

Since September 2023, the Senior Center Site Selection and Building Committee (The Committee) has been working hard to identify and recommend a viable site for the new senior center.  After many months of due diligence on both Town- and privately- owned sites, The Committee recommended Bishop Road as the site of the proposed new Senior Center.  Much work has been completed to confirm the viability of the site. 

The Committee engaged Catlin Architecture, PC to complete a feasibility study and determine a preliminary budget.  Approximately a dozen public input sessions were held in the fall and winter of 2024, to get feedback from residents, as well as from the Select Board, Capital Planning, and the Finance Committee.  The SCSSBC responded to this feedback by removing approximately 700 sq ft and nearly a million dollars in hard and soft costs. 

Throughout the spring and summer of 2025, The Committee hired Vertex as Owner’s Project Manager, completed schematic design, and got an updated cost estimate.  The Committee presented additional updates to the Select Board in July 2025, and removed an additional 700 square feet from the design, resulting in the current project.

At the Fall Town Meeting in October 2025 and the Town Election in November 2025, the Town of Ayer came out in record numbers to support a new senior center!